Jungle Laboratories
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IntroduCtIon It was early August, and the campesinos shifted uncomfortably on the rows of wooden benches.1 The sounds and smells of the humid jungles of the Chinantla region in eastern Oaxaca surrounded the tiny meet- ing hall and blended with those produced by sweaty, restless bodies. Attending oﬃcial meetings was something new for most of these strug- gling peasants. Some nervously picked at the dirt beneath chipped nails while others tightly clasped hands callused and swollen from coaxing coﬀee from tired lands. They were there to learn about the uses of a root, a wild yam called barbasco, which the majority harvested and sold for cash to buy food for their families. These campesinos wrested the root from the ground, hauled it over rough terrain, and sold it miles from their homes on the same day they picked it. As the speaker began, they listened in what seemed uncomfortable disbelief. Cer- tainly he could not be serious. They laughed nervously, jostled one an- other, and waited impatiently for the meeting to end. But the speaker, Melquíades Santiago, also a campesino and the president of their local union, persisted. He earnestly explained that the tiny blue pills that he was passing out to attendees had once been barbasco. Through what he called a “chemical process,” a substance in the gnarled tuber had been transformed into potent medications. Moreover, he insisted that the little round pill could cure aches, pains, and the “worms in their stomach” that caused cramps and gave them diarrhea. The year was 1983, but in a 1999 interview, Santiago would recall that when he left the meeting hall the ground outside was strewn with tiny colored pills. Most of the campesinos at the meeting had not be- lieved him.